Fair Use

Fair use guidelines tell us how much of the copyrighted material we can use without violating the law. For text, you can use up to 10%, but no more than 1000 words of essays, articles, or stories, of a single copyrighted work. You can use up to 250 words of an entire poem, or portion of a poem but you can not use more than 3 poems from a single poet.

For photos, you cannot use more than 5 images from a single artist or photographer. You many use up to 10%, but no more than 15 images from a single publication.

For music, you cannot change or alter the work. You may use up to 10%, but no more than 3 minutes, of a single movie, TV show or video. You may use up to 10%, but no more than 30 seconds of music and lyrics from a single musical work. You must purchase performance rights to hold a live performance of copyrighted work.